Briefly, the Court found that the Commonwealth Election Commission failed to comply with the two election laws and ordered ballots in races for the First Senatorial District to be recounted — a decision that produced precisely the same result as at the general election. I am troubled by this decision and appreciate this opportunity to explain my position.
Among other things, P.L. 16-38 and P.L. 16-43 changed some CNMI vote-counting procedures. As the author of Public Law 16-38, I feel it is necessary to clarify my intent — and what I believe was the intent of the Legislature — in enacting these changes. First, Public Law 16-38 was enacted to “allow the Commonwealth Election Commission [CEC] to more effectively and efficiently administer absentee voting….” [§1 Findings and Purpose]. Its purpose is to empower, not tie the hands of CEC. Second, the House committee that reviewed P.L. 16-38 stated that the law will “allow the First and Second Senatorial Districts to tabulate local ballots prior to shipment….” [House Comm. Report 16-70, at 2]. This, in my view, gives CEC officials the ability to tally votes from local polling places before they are sent to Saipan. Finally, in Senate debate prior to the enactment of P.L. 16-38 I stated: “It is very important [to pass this legislation] because every election year on Election Day our people would wait from 10:00 in the evening expecting the results to come in, but they do not get the results until 7:00 in the morning the next day.” [Senate Journal 16-28, 2/11/09, at 7]. I could not have been any clearer that a faster counting process was our objective.
It has never been the intent of the Legislature to impose unreasonable duties upon CEC. P.L. 16-38 and P.L. 16-43 require ballots to be preliminarily counted “in the senatorial district in which they were cast.” [1 CMC §6524(d)(2)]. The Court construed this as “all votes will eventually end up in the district for which they are cast” [2009 MP 20 ¶11] and accordingly ordered all ballots cast in the election to be re-counted (some for the third time) in Rota. The difference between the statute and the court’s opinion is more than word choice. While all votes cast for Rota races could include the total ballots cast in the election, all votes cast in Rota is a smaller subset, and at the very least does not include absentee ballots mailed to Saipan. Under this reading, the Court’s opinion is in direct conflict with legislative intent.
As CEC pointed out in comments on P.L. 16-38 — which are part of the legislative record — there is neither an office nor a regular staff assigned to Tinian or Rota, and a full vote count is not logistically feasible. Moreover, at the time the local counting requirement of P.L. 16-38 was adopted, absentee ballots were not due until 14 days after a general election. It was only later, with the adoption of P.L. 16-43, that an Election Day deadline was imposed (in order to expedite the runoff process). How then, could P.L. 16-38 possibly intend to have absentee ballots sent to Rota as part of a preliminary count? In essence, the Court is saying that P.L. 16-38 required gathering ballots cast at the Rota polls, waiting two weeks, sending absentee ballots from Saipan down to Rota, counting them together with poll ballots, then sending all ballots back to Saipan to be counted again. This is not a sensible approach to election administration. It is also the equivalent of two final counts, not one preliminary and one final count. At the very least it isn’t efficient administration to fly absentee ballots from Saipan to Rota to conduct a full count, then fly all ballots back to Saipan to conduct an identical count. The reasonable reading of the two laws, therefore, is that votes cast at the Tinian and Rota polls, and not votes which are cast elsewhere, should be locally tallied and then brought to Saipan to be added to the total. This practice gives Tinian and Rota voters a good idea of how candidates are doing without bringing the tabulation process to a halt while ballots are flown here, there, and everywhere.
I feel I must point out that the Court’s reference to the CEC post office boxes on Tinian and Rota is also misconstrued. The boxes are not part of a system for counting all ballots locally. Rather, they were established to allow residents with last-minute off-island business to vote a day or two before the election without the need to mail ballots to Saipan, where they would most likely arrive too late. Without such a provision, Public Law 16-43 would have the undesirable effect of disenfranchising this group of voters entirely. The box system was also put in place to secure a voting process that has historically been subject to tampering and other mischief.
In my view, the changes to our voting procedures were intended to promote the efficient counting of votes by giving flexibility to the commission and allowing for a preliminary count of votes cast at the Tinian and Rota polls before they are shipped to Saipan for an overall tally. This is a sensible reading of the law. Sadly, it is a far cry from the interpretation in the Court’s order, a dangerous precedent that rejects efficient election administration in favor of a fanciful and time-consuming tabulation process. This decision could cost the taxpayers thousands of dollars down the road, money that — if the recount results are an indicator — will be squandered. I am disheartened by the opinion in Hocog and will work to rectify this unfortunate result in the Seventeenth Legislature.
SEN. PAUL A. MANGLONA
First Senatorial District, Rota
